Page:Georges Sorel, Reflections On Violence (1915).djvu/303

Rh of the relations between civilised people; he turned his back on progress and showed himself incapable of understanding the world which was being formed about him; like nearly all professional prophets this sham seer confused the future with the past. Marx, on the contrary, said that "deception in merchandise in the capitalist system of production is unjust," because it no longer corresponds with the modern system of business.

The soldier of the wars of Liberty attached an almost superstitious importance to the carrying out of the smallest order. As a result of this he felt no pity for the generals or officers whom he saw guillotined after a defeat on the charge of dereliction of duty; he did not look at these events as the historians of to-day do; he had no means of knowing whether the condemned had really committed treason or not; in his eyes failure could only be explained by some grave error on the part of his leaders. The high sense of responsibility felt by the soldier about his own duties, and the extreme thoroughness with which he carried out the most insignificant order, made him approve of rigorous measures taken against men who in his eyes had brought about the defeat of the army and caused it to lose the fruit of so much heroism.

It is not difficult to see that the same spirit is met with in strikes; the beaten workmen are convinced that their failure is due to the base conduct of a few comrades who have not done all that might have been expected of them; numerous accusations of treason are brought forward; for the beaten masses, treason alone can explain the defeat of heroic troops; the sentiment, felt by all, of the thoroughness that must be brought to the accomplishment of their duties, will therefore be accompanied by many acts of violence. I do not think that the authors who have written on the events which follow strikes, have sufficiently reflected on this analogy between strikes and the wars of